6 Responses

Interesting and I’ve heard musicians admit as much. There isn’t a lot of unexplored musical territory but not everyone has a Bob Dylan inside of them otherwise someone would have stolen his success years before. Its also the case that many ‘inventions’ are invented because they can be. Believe the telegraph was invented in both Europe and the US simultaneously because electricity was finally being understood. The Wright Brothers were first but others were trying to build ‘flying machines’ because internal combustion engines had been developed that provided enough power to weight to make the concept feasible. As Thomas Edison noted, ‘genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” but if Albert Einstein had a twin brother named Fred they would share 99.99% of the same genes and it would be only that tiny genetic difference that made one a giant in physics and the other just another guy.

As the lecturer notes, this is just the “folk process” translated into modern times. The fact that folk musicians now make recordings obviously changes the game. I’ve been listening to Bob and Woody for 40+ years, and I still take pleasure each time I stumble across the origins of one of their tunes. Woody took a lot of his from the Carter family, and his bottom line rule was that he had to change at least one note to make it a new song — it’s fun to listen and find that note. Bob’s first real “original” song was “Song to Woody” — using Woody’s melody for “1913 Massacre” — which Woody took from “One Morning in May”. Bob took a trip to England in 1963 and came back with a bunch of British folk melodies that got turned into Dylan classics like the ones in the video. And if you’re as good at it as Dylan or Guthrie, you can end up making something that’s better, or at least more compelling, than the original.

Just about every artist “borrows” from other musicians. The problem comes when someone tries to claim credit for such works. Dylan and Guthrie are only the tip of the iceberg – some very big names have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

As for the tech world, don’t even try or you’ll end up being mocked in some guy’s lecture.

One could argue that Dylan has at times taken full credit for songs he only partially wrote, although in most cases the songs were in the public domain and thus fair game. But to suggest that Woody Guthrie got ‘caught with his hand in the cookie jar’ is ludicrous. He was completely straightforward about repurposing old folk tunes — and made almost no money in the process. He basically recorded for beer money. By the time a few of his songs started to gain popularity via the Weavers, Guthrie was in the hospital with a fatal illness.

The English language as it circles the drain. I tire of modern slang entering dictionaries, largely because it celebrates the lowest common denominator.

Never been a fan of remix. Everything is NOT a remix. Interesting video, but a little loosey-goosey with his examples. Just because Hollywood and the music industry is lazy doesn’t mean all creativity stems from something else.